


The Difference Between Operations and Experiments

by Spellmugwump



Series: Jekyll, Hyde and All the Rest [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassin Peter Parker, BAMF Peter Parker, Domestic Avengers, Gen, Homeless Peter Parker, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Torture, Peter Parker has PTSD, Recovery, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spellmugwump/pseuds/Spellmugwump
Summary: Peter Parker starts life in the dark of a Hydra base. Somehow, he becomes Spider-Man anyway.Including a teenager that: accidentally breaks the Winter Soldier's programming, moonlights as a pyjamas-wearing vigilante and occasionally squats in a Queens high school.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Jekyll, Hyde and All the Rest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172489
Comments: 10
Kudos: 137





	The Difference Between Operations and Experiments

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Scars, experimentation, child abuse & death.

**Before - Sasha**

* * *

Sweat dripped down his lower back and forehead. Petya could feel it drying as the wind he made whipped around him. His knees were jolting with each step on the floor. His bones ground against each other; his throat burnt.

‘Time!’

He had reached the lopsided spray of red paint that acted as his finish line. Even panting, even when his lungs shrunk in on themselves and his calves shook, Petya wrenched his spine straight to stare forwards. At Adrik.

He was a short man, though to Petya he was taller than any. He wore his smile rarely; his lips were usually pressed into a displeased line. Petya supposed he must shave sometimes as he had never seen him with a beard—but the scruff on his cheeks and neck never really changed.

Dark haired and bright-eyed, Adrik stared down at him. Petya felt something in him falter.

‘Do you think you did well?’ Adrik asked in gravelly Romanian. Petya’s tongue shrivelled; his mouth went dry. He was too afraid to breathe through his mouth and panted like a dog through his nose. The air was sharp.

Adrik seemed to expect no answer. Petya doubted he could have given one. He thought he had done well, but it was clear he had not.

A heavy fist connected with the side of his head. Black stars danced and tears prickled the corners of his eyes as he fell to the floor. Petya’s hand reached up to his temple automatically. He thought he felt his brain hit the opposite side of his head.

‘Worse than even last month, insolent boy. All I ask is you improve! A quarter of a second is all I ask. And still, you disappoint me.’

‘Adrik—’ Petya mumbled, struggling to get to his feet as the world swayed around him.

‘Don’t speak to me!’ This time he shouted in Russian. ‘Leave, before I lose my temper.’

Later, Petya curled on his mat and read one of his language books. He enjoyed the repetition of the pronouns: the _I, you, he she, we, they_. He imagined the people that spoke them to their sisters or parents or cousins. He wondered what the children were like in the Netherlands, or Mexico, and if they were different because they spoke different languages. Did it mean he could be friends with them all, because he knew how to speak just like them? The side of his head felt stiff and blinking was a conscious effort. His mind drifted as it always did, as Adrik shouted at him for…

‘Petya!’ Galina, with her light hair and dark eyes, hurried into the room. ‘What has happened?’

Petya told her his failure in slow Russian. All adults commended him on how quickly he picked up languages like they were his first, but Russian was Galina’s hesitant third. She insisted on speaking it to him to improve, but Petya saw it had hardly helped over all the time he had known her. She always had the oddest accent.

‘There is always next time,’ she said mournfully. She pretended not to notice the way Petya’s eyes glazed with tears and Petya was again thankful for her, as he was each time they met.

‘What’s that?’ Petya asked. Galina had wheeled something after her that he had not noticed—another thing Adrik would hate him for.

‘This is for blood,’ Galina said, ‘We are having an experiment today—fun? Yes?’

Petya nodded. He enjoyed the way Galina spoke to him throughout their tests and experiments even if they often hurt him for even days after. She often apologised for their length when she saw him trying not to squirm or shout. She would stroke his forehead and explain sadly that the older he got the longer they had to be, too. Petya wished to never get older.

‘Tell me about this one.’ Petya asked as she readied her needles. He liked to learn, and he liked the rare moments he heard others speak in soft voices.

‘There is not much to it,’ Galina said as she pressed a belt around his arm. ‘We must take blood to look at.’

‘Can I see? After?’ He imagined it oozing under a microscope.

Galina laughed. ‘I will see. I will try.’ Petya usually begged her to let him see the labs, and she had not been able to get him permission in all the time he had known her. But he was bigger now, everyone said so, and he went for larger and harder tests every week.

‘Now, listen.’ Galina said. ‘You will feel tired and ill. You must try to stay awake as much as you can.’

Petya nodded. He watched with fascination—his blood shooting upwards in a clear tube. The bag at the end filled quickly, and Galina changed it without wasting a drop.

‘I feel cold.’ Petya said.

Galina peered at him and nodded. ‘To be expected. No worry. Part of the experiment, huh? Stay awake like you try to keep running for Adrik.’

Petya thought, privately, that this was much better than the times he had to run miles for Adrik. Sometimes he was there for hours, too terrified to stop and too exhausted to continue. At least it taught him endurance, which was a very important thing to Adrik. It followed that it was important to Hydra, and therefore Petya too.

But even remembering the smile Adrik gave him the first time he managed a marathon was not enough to prefer the running over drifting off peacefully.

Petya blinked as the world grew out of focus. Galina was muttering somewhere far away in her odd accent. She squeezed his shoulder and told him well done, and then he saw black.

* * *

The day Petya met the Winter Soldier was also the day he lost his name.

They had moved somewhere cold a month before. Petya was unfamiliar with the goosebumps running up his arms as he stood outside the bunker. And they said it would get even colder.

Adrik had been absent since the move; Petya was older and knew he had to continue with his routine even without him breathing over his shoulder. He wondered, staring at the pine trees, whether Adrik would be tense and angry like all the other adults were. They muttered and swore under their breaths when giving Petya his meals, and glared suspiciously at one another.

A tall woman Petya often saw talking quietly with Adrik was holding his shoulder stiffly. She stared down at him with steely eyes and seemed unhappy she was near him at all.

‘Do not speak to the Asset. He has only recently been woken.’

‘The Asset?’ Petya asked. He had heard tales of him from Adrik who used him as the measure to which Petya almost always fell short.

The woman did not answer and instead looked down at him disapprovingly. Petya knew he asked too many questions—he just couldn’t help himself.

The roar of a van pulsed through the forest and out of it came the Soldier. Petya was immediately intimidated; he hardly looked human. The black of his clothes sucked away the dim light from around him and his eyes were blackened like his hair. There was something dead about him.

‘Soldier,’ said the woman in Russian. He walked over and stopped feet away sparing nothing a glance except her. ‘you will train this boy. He is called Sasha.’

Despite everything, despite the clanging alarm bells ringing in Petya’s head at the looming bodies above him, he frowned and looked up. ‘My name isn’t—’

Quicker than lightening she clapped him around the ear. He stumbled through the white noise it caused his ear and miraculously remained upright.

‘You can see he does not know his place.’ She continued smoothly. The Soldier peered down at Petya who was blinking away dark spots. He nodded.

* * *

Where Adrik had taught him the basics, the Asset taught him expertise.

It was strange, working with someone who equalled his stamina and strength. Privately, Petya thought he would grow to be even stronger, even faster than the Asset. He was only young. He had years to train and work.

Even stranger was sharing his space with another. The room he had been moved to in this strange, cold place was bigger than his last but made infinitely smaller by the presence of the Soldier. Petya had never spent so many nights pretending to sleep, waiting for the knife or metal arm to close around his throat.

Weeks passed in the grey room without word, each nursing wounds inflicted by the other. Petya received the barest of praises in the odd stilted accent when training or putting a firearm together in record time. But in the room they might as well not exist to each other.

Just like him though not as often, the Soldier was taken away for… tests. Petya was unsure what happened to him, whether he was opened up like him or made to run or climb or fight hooked up to wires. They never spoke about it when either one was wheeled, pushed or walked back to their mat.

But this time, the Soldier was eating with his human arm, which he never did. He hunched over on his left side and the arm was making occasional crackling noises that made his face crease up in pain each time. And Petya had itched to look at the arm ever since he saw it fully.

‘Sasha. Stop staring at me.’ If there were anybody else in the room Petya would have sworn it was them that spoke. The Soldier hadn’t moved an inch.

‘I can help.’ The man looked up blankly, as always. ‘Your arm. I can help. I’m good at science.’

‘You are a ten-year-old child.’ The Soldier said.

Slowly, moving like he was trapped with a panther, Petya crossed to the Soldier’s left side. He was frozen; his right hand hovered next to his fork. Petya knew it would be in his eye with one wrong move.

Barely breathing, he lifted the plate closest to the flesh shoulder. Petya could hardly believe his luck when he saw the issue. ‘This wire has decayed,’ he chose his words carefully; tried to be formal and proper. ‘Only a small problem… easy to fix. Nothing to do with the functioning. Probably caused by lack of upkeep.’

The Soldier said nothing. Petya held his breath for a minute. Then, he drew the wire out and began filing it with a fingernail, and started to fix the problem.

‘There is no pain.’ The Soldier said. There was, perhaps, a hint of surprise.

Petya said nothing in reply. He was clueless of what to say and also wanted to concentrate so that there would _be_ no pain. Both of their bodies with stiff and still; only Petya’s fingers moved as he worked with old copper.

Gently, after only ten minutes, he slid the plate back into its spot. It was rusted around the edges and he knew it was not cared for. The Soldier drew his shoulder up and down in tiny increments, eyes blank and staring into the middle distance. Petya retreated to his bed and they finished their food in silence.

Later, in the dark of night where the only light was the red blinking eye of the camera, the Soldier spoke into the gloom.

‘Sasha. Thank you.’

Petya blinked. ‘It's okay.’ He turned his head to face the general area of the Soldier’s mat. ‘My name isn’t Sasha. My name is Petya, really.’

An age passed.

‘You may call me Yakov.’ The soldier said. He made a displeased noise then, the most human Petya had ever heard him. There was a rustling which he thought was the mat shifting slightly.

‘My programming is malfunctioning.’ The Asset said quietly. Petya didn’t think he was supposed to hear.

* * *

Around the time he was eleven, Petya began missions. He was small enough that it was usually reconnaissance or computer work while the Asset carried out the kill. But Hydra did not let Petya’s soul alone, and by the time his twelfth birthday rolled around he had forgotten the number of throats he had slit.

Adrik made his reappearance shortly after the Soldier did. He bore a new scar that slashed across his nose and was permanently filled with boiling anger. He continued training Petya with input of the woman. She taught him pressure points and angles, the best knives for throwing and which household chemicals would mix into poisons to maim, subdue or kill. Adrik made him fight with men who had wronged Hydra or him personally.

‘You have been sheltered for too long, Sasha.’ Adrik had said in German after telling Petya of Prague. ‘Other agents have been out countless times at your age. Pitiful.’

So, Petya and the Soldier hijacked a small hotel room in what had to be the very centre of the city. Petya made sure it would be empty, and Yakov made sure the cleaning staff would not disturb them. And when Yakov left Petya to his own devices when getting supplies, he turned on the television.

It was a wonder to him. He only experienced it when out, and it almost made the shuddering breaths of those he choked life from worth it. The people were vibrant, of all shapes and sizes with each accent stranger than the next. He thought he pinned down the odd curve of Galina’s voice from programmes—English. He had never been taught it, but he spent the secret private hours with the television trying to.

Even with the far off glamour of the worlds other people led, Petya found the people fascinating. He didn’t know for sure who was acting and who was real. But, to him, it didn’t matter, because they all had one thing he couldn’t recollect—personalities.

All he saw of emotion was the anger of Adrik or his brief moments of pleasure at Petya’s new personal best. From Galina Petya got what he supposed was fondness, tenderness. But what he saw on the television was bright and vivid; each thought played across their faces. They were easier to read than a book, easier to understand than code. They laughed and cried and made each other laugh and cry. They interacted with warmth and passion, bouncing off each other in a way that was so impossibly distant.

It was the first time Petya saw personality. This was being human and he had none of it. He mostly made those that knew him angry; they never showed anything otherwise. Petya considered it as the room went dark around him and Yakov still didn’t return. Was it his fault? No—Galina smiled sometimes and the Soldier allowed him to call him Yakov. Was it, then, Hydra?

Somewhere with the ache of a wound in his side, it settled in Petya that he wanted to be like those on the screen. He wanted to forge friendships with other children, to make them laugh and be able to smile right back at him. He didn’t want to be only the weapon Adrik trained him to be. He decided he would quite like to be a person.

The news on the television chimed. Czech was not Petya’s best language even if he could read it well. He hardly had to pay attention before English—that new, sharp tongue—took over.

The man flickering on screen with bright lights and sharp angles was grinning widely. Personhood became him; he laughed at something the interviewer said and tilted his head. Petya decided, in the back of his head, to learn these moves.

_Aliens Hit Europe: Tony Stark discusses the Avengers’ plans after London mayhem_ ran across the bottom of the screen in Czech.

Petya couldn’t watch much more; Yakov returned with a large bag over his shoulder. He was silent as he emptied it; a sniper rifle and bullets scattering with bottles and bandages. He muted the television after staring for a moment at the man.

‘Why did you buy bandages?’ Petya asked in German. ‘We don’t have much money.’

‘You think I didn’t notice your wound?’ Yakov replied. He always spoke in Russian, but understood whatever language Petya chose anyway.

‘It’s fine,’ Petya said quickly.

‘No it isn’t, Sasha.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘You never know who is listening.’ The Soldier did not look up from reading the side of a bottle.

‘I checked.’

Yakov raised his eyebrows and carried on his silence. Petya returned to the end of one of the twin beds and stared at the man on screen.

‘I think it is infected.’ Yakov said. ‘It should have healed by now. They must not have closed the wound correctly.’

‘Galina gave me stitches.’ Yakov shoved Petya’s jacket up and stared at his side.

‘Galina is clearly terrible at sewing.’ He said lowly after staring for too long.

Petya felt defensive. And petulant. ‘She’s not. She’s good at operations.’

Yakov let go of the jacket and allowed the wound to be covered once more. He looked into Petya’s eyes. ‘There is a very big difference between an operation and an experiment.’ He said. His lips were pressed into a thin line.

‘No there’s not,’ Petya rolled his eyes; he’d seen it on a programme earlier.

The kill was successful and Petya was helpful in executing it; he got the needle with sedatives into the mark’s leg after all. Yakov said nothing else as they searched the woman’s bag and body, said nothing as they left, said nothing on the plane.

The next day, Adrik drew Petya to one side before a fight. ‘Sasha,’ he said. ‘You did well in Prague. I am confident you are able to conduct your own missions now. From now on, I am your Handler.’

Petya nodded; the thrill ran throughout his body like a shock. He tried to keep the smile from creeping to his lips. Even so, Adrik spotted it. He pushed Petya’s back towards the hunched soldier standing, stranded, near the centre of the room.

Adrik leant down so his breath tickled Petya’s ear. ‘Kill this one, Sasha. He is a traitor to the cause. Don’t be too quick.’

* * *

Galina had a deep crease between her brows. Petya’s attempts since Yakov left to nurture the connection they had when he was small were proving fruitless. Over the months she had simply become more and more stressed. She had broken the arm of one of her glasses.

She did not smile as she said ‘Sasha!’ even though her voice was warm. Nothing reached her eyes.

Petya was lying on a gurney. The room was cold and bright, filled with more others than he had ever seen collected. A tension filled the air.

‘A very big day today,’ she said. He had nailed her accent in the months previously; American.

She looked through him as she spoke, her eyes focussing on the drip someone had forced into the crook of his elbow. Petya glanced down at his scarred chest and wondered what constituted a big day. He _had_ thought the long scar from chest to groin was a big day.

It was with apprehension that he watched two blank scientists, one sweating profusely, cover his wrists in loose rope and attach them to the table. He could squirm his wrist out with a little effort; they were for keeping him in place.

They left him for a while after that. His mind drifted to his language books, reciting the pronouns of the languages he knew fluently: Russian, Romanian, Italian, French, German, Spanish. He was beginning to think of the Periodic table when another needle sunk into each thigh—he couldn’t help it, he yelped.

‘Oh Sasha,’ Galina said, ‘it will be over soon. You will thank me.’

Even if Petya had wanted to speak, he couldn’t have. Bile and phlegm rose in his mouth as his muscles relaxed. The world drew in and out of focus; sometimes Galina hovered and sometimes the scientists. Sometimes Yakov appeared at the very corner of his vision like a ghost.

Sharp, tiny jolts of pain ran from his side. As the world swayed around him, it was his only focus. The noise rose and swelled around him and Petya felt he was underwater.

‘How do you feel?’ Galina asked after a time. The fog had dissipated somewhat and Petya was left with the unsettling feeling of something wrong. He felt that the world was just inches too close.

‘I—’ Petya swallowed and tried to clear his mouth. It ached; he had clenched it for too long. ‘I feel—’

A blast of noise like none he had ever heard indoors shrieked. The scientist closest to Petya that wasn’t Galina swore loudly in French. Galina looked up; she had gone very, very pale.

‘Galina,’ Petya mumbled.

The noise continued. People scrambled around Petya, lying in the centre of the room. His scars itched and he shifted in discomfort, blinking blearily at the brightness.

Galina’s face appeared inches from Petya’s own, breath hot and sickly on his nose and cheeks. ‘Sasha,’ she hissed, ‘stay here. I will be back. Something has—they know. I must go. They know.’

Petya, too weak to do anything but squint, lay groggily. After what he supposed was a few hours, the confusion passed and a different kind set in; the noise still howled and had given him a headache. He was feeling much warmer than before. Still, nobody had returned.

Skin prickling, he wound his fingers out of the rope and then untied his feet. The needles were useless now; the drips they led to were bone dry. The scientists had dropped everything to hurry away in the wake of the alarm, including him.

Uneasy, Petya shuffled to the doorway. There was not a soul. The alarm ceased, and in the room behind him computers blinked and the whir of the lights and their motherboards hummed as the only noises left. Perhaps he had been lying, useless, for longer than he thought. That, or a swift apocalypse had occurred.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I hope you'll enjoy this three-parter! I thought it was about time I contribute to one of my favourite tropes. I am writing this with a view to continue it into a series.


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